adversary
/ˈæd.vəɹˌsɛɹi/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.29 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "He prepared to fight his adversary."
- "In the political drama that Donald Trump has created in Washington, he could not have dreamed up a more formidable adversary than James Comey."
- "The real bombshell it contains is not the confidence of the spy agencies that Russia hoped to subvert American democracy. It is that US intelligence experts effectively confirmed that for the second election in a row, Trump acolytes repeatedly used, knowingly or otherwise, misinformation produced by the spies of one of America’s most sworn foreign adversaries to try to win a US election."
- "Yahweh′s turning Gog around, putting hooks in his jaws, and bringing him out from the remotest parts of the north (Ezek. 38:4-6) is now interpreted as the release of the Adversary from prison."
Etymology
From Middle English adversarie, from Anglo-Norman aversaire (in Wace's Life of Saint Margaret) and Old French aversier, aversaire (French adversaire), from Latin adversārius, from adversus (“turned toward”). By surface analysis, adverse + -ary.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: adversarie, aversaire, aversier, adversārius
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈæd.vəɹˌsɛɹi/
- British English: /ˈæd.və.sɛɹi/
Inflected Forms
adversaries (plural)
the Adversary (canonical)